Ushahidi selected as one of Classy Awards 100 Finalists for Best in Social Innovation

We have some exciting news to share. Ushahidi has been named a 2016 Classy Awards Finalist, selected as one of the 100 most innovative nonprofits and social enterprises!

This year, Classy had 1300 submissions, an all-time high. We were judged using stringent criteria that assesses an organization's potential to solve a problem and create an innovative solution.

Ushahidi, along with the other 99 rock-star Finalists - to view the full list of finalists, visit collab.live/finalists16 – is now in the running to become a Winner. The Classy Award’s Leadership Council, a diverse board of experts and thought leaders, will collectively vote to determine the 10 Classy Award Winners and announce it at their Awards ceremony June 14th-16th.

Pat Walsh, Co-Founder and CIO of Classy.org, says, "The Classy Awards team spends a year extensively researching social innovations from around the world. We've been fortunate to discover some incredible organizations over the past few years, but this year's pool of nominees is one of the strongest we've ever seen! We're honored to play a role in convening leaders throughout the sector to recognize their efforts,"

It’s a great honor to be recognized for our efforts and creative solutions that are making an impact in the world. We are particularly hopeful that it will help us raise the remaining of the $2.5 million in funds we are seeking after getting the good news about the USAID Development Innovations Ventures funding last week.

But most importantly we hope that this can help bring attention to the great work of the deployers of our tool, who are the true heroes. We at Ushahidi proudly sport a t-shirt with the phrase “We are Q” on it. We are Q, you ask? During a team brainstorm a few years back a team members spouted, “Our users are human rights reporters, freedom of speech advocates, front-line citizen journalists, and first-responders, they are bringing transparency to corrupt governments and acts of violence, helping the marganizlized and abused share their voice, and helping respond to those in need after a disaster, they are James Bond, they are 007, and that would make us Q. We build the tools to help them on the front lines of social justice.

Thank you Classy for this honor. But most of all, thank you to the users of Ushahidi, you are rock stars, secret agents, and heroes. We owe you a drink, shaken not stirred.